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Three-Age System

Rightly regarded as being one of the most significant conceptual advances in prehistoric archaeology, the three-age system had a long gestation that drew on the writings of classical historians and geographers, Enlightenment philosophers, antiquarians in Scandinavia, and the large collections of the Museum of National Antiquities in Copenhagen. Historians of archaeology are fond of demonstrating that the idea of producing a sequence of human history tied to a gradual evolution in the complexity of technology and material culture (from Stone Age to Bronze Age and then to Iron Age) is as old as the ancient Greeks. Certainly, the discovery of contemporary peoples in the Americas (and the Arctic) who used stone tools and who were believed to be in a comparatively uncivilized state provided strong support for such ideas. It is also true, as Swedish archaeologist Bo Gräslund (1987) has argued, that other antiquarians such as the German Freidrich Lisch (1801–1883) were persuaded that the writings of the ancients, the philosophers, and the explorers might provide a valuable key to unlocking the secrets of European prehistory. Nonetheless, it was the Dane christian jürgensen thomsen (1788–1865) who did the most to develop and promote the three-age system.

It is significant that it is easier to discuss the impact of the three-age system through Thomsen’s book—Ledetraad til nordisk Oldkyndighed (1836), published in a very bad English translation as Guide to Northern Archaeology (1848)—than it is to recount the steps Thomsen took to develop the system. Historians of archaeology have stressed that the system was the outcome of Thomsen’s desire to rearrange the collections of the Museum of National Antiquities in Copenhagen in a strict chronological form. Gräslund has argued that this process occurred sometime between 1818 and 1825, when the exhibition was completed. He has also noted that this work was achieved at least ten years before the publication of the Ledetraad and that the system had been exported to Sweden and Norway by the early 1830s.

Thus, the Ledetraad is a museum guidebook that provides an explanation of the objects in the collection within the context of a broader exposition of how archaeologists create information and how artifacts can be dated. In this exposition, Thomsen went well beyond a description of technology to include discussions of a wide range of objects and site types, focusing particularly on the association of artifacts in sites. This more complex understanding of how archaeologists could define chronology in ways that could be directly confirmed by field discoveries was a significant reason for the early and widespread acceptance of the three-age system in Scandinavia and northern Germany. For an understanding of how the system was “exported” from the north to the rest of Europe we need to turn to the advocacy of Thomsen’s successor, jens jacob worsaae, especially the English translation of his book The Primeval Antiquities of Denmark (1843), and German scholar ludwig lindenschmidt (1809–1893).

Tim Murray

Tikal

One of the largest and most important classic Maya sites, Tikal is situated in northern guatemala, and its archaeological sequence spans the years from ca. 800 b.c. to a.d. 900. At its height, during the Maya classic period (a.d. 250–900), Tikal was a massive site, covering some sixty-five square kilometers and containing thousands of structures—the population of Tikal at its height was perhaps 100,000.

Tikal was rediscovered only 150 years ago, and for the second half of the nineteenth century it was visited by a succession of early researchers. It was not until the 1950s, however, that excavations began. From 1955 until 1969,